1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a delivery-information management method and a delivery-information management program for managing information for delivery of packages. In particular, the present invention relates to a delivery-information management method and a delivery-information management program for determining a delivery date and time in accordance with a schedule of a recipient.
2) Description of the Related Art
Currently, a great number of transportation companies are providing home delivery services. In the home delivery services, when a transportation company (i.e., a home delivery company) receives from a sender a package to be home-delivered, the home delivery company delivers the package to the home of the recipient. In many cases, it is necessary to directly deliver packages to recipients or members of the families of the recipients by hand. For example, when acknowledgment of receipt by a recipient himself or herself is required, a package is required to be directly delivered to the recipient by hand. In addition, packages which cannot be put in a private mailbox are also required to be directly delivered to recipients by hand.
However, recipients may be absent when deliverers visit the homes of the recipients. Since the deliverers cannot directly deliver packages to the recipients by hand when the recipients are absent, the deliverers have to temporarily bring back the packages. In these cases, the packages are delivered to the recipients at later dates. That is, the deliverers repeatedly visit the homes of the recipients for delivery of the packages, and the working efficiency is lowered. In addition, since the recipients are not informed of when the packages are delivered, the recipients cannot go out without anxiety.
Therefore, currently, the home delivery companies are providing services for delivering packages at dates and times designated in advance when requested by senders or recipients. For example, the delivery dates and times are designated when the home delivery companies receive the packages from the senders. In these cases, the senders have to spend additional time confirming that the recipients are at home at the designated dates and times. That is, the utilization efficiency of the services is low.
Thus, in order to promote use of the services for delivering packages at designated dates and times, it is necessary to facilitate designation of delivery times by recipients. However, since, generally, the recipients are not informed of delivery of packages in advance, the recipients cannot designate the delivery dates and times in advance. Therefore, systems for notifying recipients of existence of packages to be delivered have been proposed. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications Nos. 2001-312540 and 2002-24710 disclose techniques for sending information on packages to terminals at delivery destinations by e-mails. It is possible to prompt recipients to designate delivery dates and times by sending the information on the packages to the recipients in advance.
Nevertheless, in order to receive designation of a delivery date and time by the conventional techniques, it is necessary to perform operations for input of information specifying a package (invoice number), input for authentication of the designator as the recipient, and the like. That is, designation of a delivery date and time is not easy.
In addition, if the designation of a delivery date and time is made by telephone, a telephone charge is made to the recipient. Therefore, when the recipient frequently receives delivered packages, expense for telephone becomes an unignorable amount.
As described above, the expense for telephone and the cumbersome procedure imposed on the recipient become disincentives for the recipient to use the service s for delivering packages at designated dates and times. As a result, the home delivery companies cannot reduce the number of revisits for delivery of packages. That is, additional processes and times are required for delivery of packages.
The present invention is made in view of the above problems, and the object of the present invention is to provide a delivery-information management method and a delivery-information management program which enables designation of a delivery date and time by easy manipulation of a terminal or the like.
In order to accomplish the above object, a delivery-information management method for managing a delivery time of an article to be delivered, by using a computer, is provided. The delivery-information management method is characterized by comprising the steps of: (a) recording a delivery information item in a database when the delivery information item is input, where the delivery information item includes a delivery date and time of an article to be delivered and a telephone number and an e-mail address of a recipient; (b) transmitting an e-mail to the e-mail address, where the e-mail contains the delivery date and time and a telephone number for confirmation communication; (c) receiving a telephone call to the telephone number for confirmation communication, and acquiring an originating telephone number which indicates a number assigned to a telephone line through which the telephone call is made; and (d) setting in the delivery information item a flag indicating that a delivery date and time are confirmed, when the telephone number of the recipient coincides with the originating telephone number.
In addition, in order to accomplish the above object, a delivery-information management program which makes a computer perform processing for managing a delivery time of an article to be delivered is provided. The delivery-information management program is characterized in that the processing comprises the steps of: (a) recording a delivery information item in a database when the delivery information item is input, where the delivery information item includes a delivery date and time of an article to be delivered and a telephone number and an e-mail address of a recipient; (b) transmitting an e-mail to the e-mail address, where the e-mail contains the delivery date and time and a telephone number for confirmation communication; (c) receiving a telephone call to the telephone number for confirmation communication, and acquiring an originating telephone number which indicates a number assigned to a telephone line through which the telephone call is made; and (d) setting in the delivery information item a flag indicating that a delivery date and time are confirmed, when the telephone number of the recipient coincides with the originating telephone number.